I really do love Anita Brookner’s writing, although, I find when it comes to writing a review I am somewhat at a loss to explain why. Her novels are certainly not plot driven, and people who only like plot driven narratives might well be driven mad by the quiet contemplation and introspection. I like the quiet genteel lives of Brookner’s world, and find – maybe alarmingly that I understand them. I often hear and see the word depressing applied to reviews of Brookner’s novels – well I can see why – though I prefer the term melancholic. Anita Brookner does make me examine my own life – and it’s not always comfortable to do so.
In Brief Lives we meet Fay and Julia in middle and late middle age. Both are married – and later widowed, affluent and childless. Fay was once a singer on the radio before her marriage, Julia an actress – who has ever since retained her sense of the dramatic. The novel opens with Fay reading of Julia’s death, a woman with whom she shared a great deal of her life until more recently.
“Julia died. I read it in The Times this morning. There was quite a substantial obituary, but what immediately fixed my attention was the photograph, one of those studio portraits of the late 1930’s or early 1940’s, all huge semi-transparent eyes, flat hair, and dark lipstick. I never liked her, nor did she like me; strange, then, how we managed to keep up a sort of friendship for so long.”
In her younger days, newly married, Fay lives in quiet fear of her mother-in-law Vinnie, who’s obsessive like adoration of her son Owen is intimidating. This relationship is mirrored to an extent in the “friendship” that develops between Fay and Julia, Julia the wife of Owen’s business partner. As the years pass, Julia – eleven years Fay’s senior – becomes more reliant upon Fay – in a purely selfish way, she manipulates Fay, who, knowing that she is in thrall to Julia seems unable to leave Julia behind, even when their husbands through whom they are connected have died. Julia is a kind of frail but elegant bully. Around Julia are the lonely women, who help her live quietly in her grand flat, including a slightly pathetic young woman Maureen who Julia obviously despises, and Julia’s former dresser from her theatrical days. Julia orders them around in her imperious way, little appreciating what they do for her, while telephoning Fay to wheedle another visit. As she herself ages, Fay must contend with the deaths of her mother and then her husband, finding that she is now alone, alters Fay’s view of herself and the world around her.
“I was very lonely during the weeks that followed my mother’s death. I knew that I should never again be all the world to anyone, as it says in the song. Normally I despise women who claim never to have got over their parents’ death, or who affirm that their fathers were the most perfect men who had ever lived. I despise them, but I understand them. How can any later love compensate for the first, unless it is perfect? My simple parents had thought me unique, matchless, yet they had let me go away from them without a murmur of protest.”
Although I enjoyed this novel enormously, Brief Lives won’t be my favourite Brookner novel, I think that would be A Closed Eye, or Look at Me, however it is a typical Brookner book and so if you were to read it and enjoy it, then it would be fair to say you will like her others too. Anita Brookner’s writing is beautiful, her observations of people in their quiet genteel lives, for me quite unparalleled. Though I find there is a coldness to Brookner’s writing, which is absent in the novels of such writers as Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym, who also examine the lives of upper or middle class women. With its overriding themes of ageing and nostalgia, Brief Lives is an intelligent and poignant novel, which benefits from a slow and considered reading.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book by Brookner, but this one doesn’t stand out as special (compared to other novels I have on my to-read shelves). Maybe I’ll try another book of her some time. She is an author I’ve been wanting to read.
I would recommend Look at me : )
I thought I’d read this one but a quick check of my log shows that I’m mistaken. Although I do wholly enjoy her work (often it’s the bookishness of her characters that wins me), I confess to muddling the novels consistently. Something of the tone encourages me to blur the lines between them in my reader’s mind.
Yes I do that too sometimes, the themes and centeral characters of her novels are after all fairly similar.
Great review. Would you allow me to reprint it (with a link back to your blog) on the International Anita Brookner Day blog? http://www.brooknerday.blogspot.com
Yes of course, that’s fine. I hadn’t heard about an Anita Brookner day. Would love to know more about it.
It was a day Simon Savidge and I created to celebrate Brookner’s 30 years of publishing fiction. Celebrated it on he 83rd birthday in July 2011. I created a blog to post as many blog reviews of her novels as possible. I just notice that you have a lot of Brookner reviews. I would love to add them all. It will really add a lot to the collection of reviews.
That’s fine though there are a lot of old blog posts/reviews that I brought over from Livejournal when I came over to wordpress last year that are rather short and might need editing.
I have just read Brief Lives; it is my first Brookner, though it will not be my last. I agree with your description of the tone as “melancholic”, versus “depressing.” As a reader most definitely past my first youth (though I am not a solitary, single woman) I found myself keenly appreciating the detail of the narrator’s world as she faces her “declining years” with a certain dignified grace.
I enjoyed your review; I would like to link it on my own blog when I write my own short review of Brief Lives.
Please feel free to do so : ) thanks for commenting – I hope you will join in with my reading event Brookner in July, an month long celebration of Anita Brookner. I have six Brookner’s sitting here TBR I have yet to decide which ones or how many I will read next month.
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